The IT marketing one-night stand. It’s a thing. Seriously. And it’s ruining business owners everywhere. But what exactly is an IT marketing one-night stand?

It’s exactly what you think it is . . . but not

When it comes to IT marketing, there’s this unrealistic expectation that fame is fast, traffic is inevitable, and success is guaranteed. But that’s not necessarily true. And when business owners realize this, they’re quick to ditch their marketing strategy and give up completely. We’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen. IT marketing takes years to get right, and it’s really no different than building an effective sales team or service delivery department. You need goals, processes, a strategy, KPIs, a team, and so on . . . But more than anything, IT marketing is about time, patience, and dedication. Without those three things, you probably won’t see the results you’re hoping for.

IT marketing prosOkay, okay . . . but seriously, how long does IT marketing take?

There is no hard and fast number when it comes to IT marketing and the time it takes to see results. And really, the only thing we can tell you is that it just depends. HOWEVER, there are benchmarks. For example, Fractl says that on-site content marketing should start to deliver results within six months (this includes blogging, whitepapers, case studies, and traditional website content). Off-site content marketing, on the other hand, takes about six to 12 months (this includes awareness campaigns, off-site blogging, etc.). In other words, you need to wait at least six months to decide whether your marketing is working. But we’re about to hit you with another however . . .

6 months or 6 years . . . it is what you make it

That’s right. It could take six years for you to see any results. Then again, it could take six weeks. (And no, it won’t ever take six days. That’s just ridiculous.) Sure, you need time, patience, and dedication—but the amount of effort you put forth will also have a big impact on whether or not you’re successful. In fact, Search Engine Journal says this:
“100 unique organic visits daily in almost any niche topic can be acquired in about three to four months.”
That’s a lot of traffic for anyone, especially for a managed service provider. But for that to happen (and in less than six months), there’s a lot of work involved. SEJ says there are four main steps involved in this:

1. Quantity

You must create a lot of content (at least more content than your competition is creating)
“Do a search on the keyword phrase that is important for your campaign to find out who comes up number one. Visit that site and count how many pages the website you want to beat has on that keyword phrase. Now, do more pages/posts, relevant and focused about that keyword phrase on your website than your competitor does and you will eventually beat them in the SERPs.”—SEJ

2. Quality

You must create content that is valuable, timeless, and relevant (but also SEO-friendly and strategic)

3. Consistency

You must update your content often (or at least as often as your competition updates their content)
“Crawling is the process where Googlebot goes around from website to website, finding new and updated information and reporting it back to Google.”—SEO Mechanic

4. Longevity

You must keep at it and not give up (or at least keep at it longer than your competition keeps at it) You probably get the point. You need a lot of good content, consistently and for a long time. But you only need to be ahead of your competition. Not every site ever created.

But why just the competition?

Well, we’re glad you asked. Every industry is different. Every target market is different. Every tilt is different. Every geographic location is different. You don’t have all the time, money, and resources in the world to go full beast mode on marketing 100% of the time. And luckily, you don’t have to. That is, unless your competition does. You need to be strategic. You need to do your research. And you need to understand what your goals are. If your goal is to rank #1 for the search term “Cloud computing in Dallas,” then you first need to figure out who’s currently ranking for that. Take a look at their page, examine it from top to bottom, and start from there. However, if your goal isn’t to rank anywhere on Google but instead to receive 1,000 unique visitors every month with a conversion rate of 20%, your wires might be a little crossed. How do you expect to get that many visitors every month without a solid presence on Google? Unless you’re Gandalf or you have a massive social media following (or both), that probably won’t happen without some degree of SEO strategy. However, if the latter is true, a byproduct of that will most likely be you rising in the ranks on Google.

IT marketing teamworkSo what’s the moral of the blog?

Don’t give up. That is all. Keep at it and knock off all those one-night stands. Understand that marketing requires time, patience, and dedication. If you don’t have those three things, then you’ll see no results. But we believe in you, and we know you can do it. And if you ever need help, we’re right here. Don’t hesitate to reach out.